Timely Persuasion was recently named third favorite time travel story on the Enumeration Podcast!

It was an honor to be named here amongst several other great time travel tales. The three hosts came up with quite a set of stories altogether. Their complete lists are covered below – but check out the full episode for some cool discussion about each set of three:

1. We The Common — Thao & The Get Down Stay Down
This album came out in January and managed to hold the top go to slot all year. Rockin’ and poppy, with shades of The Breeders here and there. Saw them live three times this year and they didn’t disappoint. Thao’s encore duet of “Be My Baby” with the opening band at the Troubadour was a concert highlight.

2. We Are The 21st Century… — Foxygen
Heard “No Destruction” from this album for the first time on December 28th when my iPod died in the car on the way home from dinner. Then I listened to the full album 7 times in the next 24 hours. Love love love love this record and how it feels like an oldie in a Local Boyish sort of way. Only reason I’m not calling it #1 is the late discovery and acknowledging I’m still in the honeymoon phase, but I reserve the right to retcon later.

3. The Ghost of Escondido — Escondido

4. Solid Sound Covers Set — Wilco
Though not really an album per se, you can buy it from Wilco’s site so I’m counting it. An unexpected all request covers set at the third annual Solid Sound Festival, and one heck of a diverse setlist.

5. The Ballad of Boogie Christ — Joseph Arthur
Benji Hughes once sang “I haven’t heard an original heartfelt song about Jesus in awhile.” Here are a bunch of them — in a non-religious musical concept that plays like a modern alt-rock Jesus Christ Superstar.

November 5th continues to be one of my favorite pseudo-holidays for obvious time travel geekery reasons.

In honor of that great red-letter date, here are a few BTTF tidbits found in Timely Persuasion.

Chapter 3:

After a year of constantly playing the Back to the Future soundtrack, my uncle took me to see Huey Lewis and the News.

Chapter 9:

I didn’t even need or want a DeLorean. Just a time bicycle would have made me a happy camper.

Chapter 17:

That was it. He confirmed that the future mother of his children actually existed, gave Nelson’s Mom the Heisman, renamed the album Quits, played one final show, and abruptly left the music business behind to seek out his density—I mean destiny—with my real mother.

Chapter 17:

Still groggy, aching, and starving, I woke up on the couch with a figure hovering above me.

My original plan wasn’t to review these two albums together, but when the synergy hit me I couldn’t pass it up.

Nirvana & Mike Doughty somehow managed to intertwine themselves with my musical DNA years ago and haven’t ever let go. Nevermind was my first favorite album and the one that pretty much made me who I am today. Doughty’s Skittish solo record dethroned it when I’d tell everyone I knew that “the guy from Soul Coughing has this amazing acoustic solo album!” Both artists left a heavy stamp on Timely Persuasion. By my unofficial count Nirvana got 14 allusions and a subplot about a time traveler trying to stop Kurt’s death, while Doughty got 21 allusions (10 solo & 11 SC) and his handwriting font used on Local Boy’s setlists and retirement letters. (Yeah, I’m not fanatical…)

When I heard about the In Utero deluxe edition I was more excited about spending some 20th anniversary time with the record than actually buying it again. I’d already bought it thrice in my life (on the day of original release, then again 6 months later when I found an import copy, noticed something was off about the back cover tracklist and excitedly realized it had a bonus track!, and finally about a year later when I found a bootlegged version billed as the Pachyderm Sessions with Albini’s mixes), already had all of the B-Sides (pre-box set from singles and compilations — I confess I bought The Beavis & Butt-head Experience the day it came out so I could hear Nirvana’s “I Hate Myself and Want to Die” song…), and never really found remastered or remixed versions of anything all that compelling. But when details of the mysterious “2013 Mix” started to emerge I was pretty intrigued.

The idea was pretty cool. This remix would be more about “exploring the roads not taken” by subbing in different guitar solos, vocal takes, and backing parts recorded originally but not used. Sort of an alternate history, second chance at mixing the album with 20 years of hindsight. The changes are relatively minor in the scheme of things, but I still smile when I catch one of them. “Serve the Servants” has a different guitar solo. “Dumb” no longer has a cello. “Heart-Shaped Box” has an extra harmony on the verse. “Very Ape” adds some more guitar feedback to the intro. But my favorite part of all are Kurt’s screams on “Scentless Apprentice.” I’ve always said that “Spank Thru” had my favorite studio version of a Cobain howl, but now there’s a new winner.

While the In Utero 2013 mix is about small differences, Mike Doughty went for some bigger changes with his album of re-imagined Soul Coughing songs. Soul Coughing covers used to be a big part of his solo shows, but they slowly dwindled as he had more of his own material until they evaporated altogether. Doughty later started discussing more openly how much he really hated his time in Soul Coughing and how the old songs brought back that pain, culminating with the release of his memoir, The Book of Drugs.

After reading the book I felt guilty about often referring to Doughty as “the guy from Soul Coughing” (as I did at the start of this post), but later realized that wasn’t really such a sin. I wasn’t calling him “one of the guys” from an old band, but specifically “THE GUY” — as in the one and only. In the eyes of my younger self it was his band, they were his songs, and he can and should take them with him to do whatever the heck he wants with him. So I was especially excited to learn he was taking them back in an attempt to reclaim them for himself and purge the demon of a dark time in his life.

The differences in the new Doughty versions vs. the old Soul Coughing versions vary a bit, but all in all I’m really digging the re-done versions. “Sleepless” loses the lo-fi intro I never really liked and gender swaps the personified sleep character to make the lyrics work better. I have a vague recollection of sitting in a car outside a party listening to the original “How Many Cans?” when a friend said “this song would be awesome if the music part was better.” Seems he was right. “True Dreams of Wichita” has always been one of my favorite songs by any artist, and the new version further cements it for me — even improving on it by nicely retconning the awkward “stand on the corner and bellow for mush” lyric with the far better “stand in the branches of a juniper bush.” (Plus I love the inclusion of “I Miss The Girl” since the line “going down to Baltimore, going in an off-white Honda” is among the top utterances to slip out in my lifelong battle with lyrical tourette’s.)

Of course playing the comparison game sometimes exposes some questionable calls on the new takes. Does “Dumb” really benefit by taking away the cello? Was “Monster Man” really worth redoing when most of the lyrics were skipped? How would Kurt Cobain have felt about the whole reissue/anniversary type thing? That’s a loaded question that’s pretty much impossible to answer. Doughty’s change of heart around revisiting his past illustrates that anyone’s perspective can shift — and that’s a good thing.

In the spirit of my 2010 Coachella recap, here are some thoughts on last weekend’s Fester-esque trip to Outside Lands in San Francisco.

Arrived a little late on Friday, mostly getting the lay of the land while gearing up for Paul McCartney’s highly anticipated headlining set and fulfillment of my lifelong dream to see a Beatle live. (Yes, I realize that in some regards this might be me.)

Band of Horses were ok, but not exactly what I expected. The National were more impressive and quite solid. But Sir Paul exceeded all expectations and then some.

I could go on and on but I’ll try not to, consolidating down to two points: If the reason I went to shows was to seek the perfect performance, I could stop now. (Don’t worry, I won’t.) And if you say your favorite band is anyone other than the Beatles, you are a liar.

Ok, a little bit more. Singing along to “Paperback Writer” was a transcendental life moment. As was “We Can Work It Out” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Hey Jude.” Unexpected surprises included “Magical Mystery Tour,” “Your Mother Should Know,” “All Together Now,” “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” and “Day Tripper.” And my neck still hurts from banging my head to “Helter Skelter.” Wow…

The Beer Lands & Wine Lands concepts were pretty cool, though I was most impressed with the special beers at the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp tent. Shawn Smith from Fester would have been in heaven — assuming he could get a wristband and some scrips…

I liked the location in Golden Gate Park better than the Empire Polo Field where they hold Coachella. Cool wooded walkways, a nice hillside view of the second stage, a fun old-timey side stage (complete with 3 card monte for a buck!) — plus it’s not 3 gajillion degrees out in the middle of the desert.

Day two highlights included Thao & the Get Down Stay Down (still holding the lead for my album of the year), Tallest Man on Earth, and the Head and The Heart.

The most fun of the whole weekend (outside of Paul) was the Bring the Rock show in the Barbary comedy tent at noon on Sunday. Quoting the perfect description: “Comics and Musicians tell funny stories about music and then…they rock.” The rocking was all cover songs (Replacements, Lucinda Williams, Stone Temple Pilots, Motörhead, Social Distortion) that loosely tied to the previous story. If this was a recurring thing in LA I’d go see it every month.

Day three became the inevitable festival lightning round day due to setlist conflicts. Got to see Camper Van Beethoven play “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” Fishbone cover “Date Rape” by Sublime, some kick-ass rocking from Deap Vally, and the first half of a fun set by Trombone Shorty.

Hall & Oates were a neat nostalgic trip, though I still can’t fathom how they could NOT play “Private Eyes” or “Kiss on My List.”

Rounding out the night Dawes were impressive and warrant a further listen, Willie Nelson made for nice hillside viewing, and I think I re-aggravated my “Helter Skelter” neck injury with some guilty pleasure rocking out to “Give It Away” at the end of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Next up on the belated Fester festival tour will be Way Over Yonder in October. See you there!

“Purple parallelogram I got in Amsterdam, made me dream a dream I didn’t understand.” — The Lemonheads

Checked out time-travel play A Parallelogram this weekend and really dug it. Warning: Spoilers Below…

The play focuses on Bee, a thirty-something woman who recently met her time traveler future self that — ala Quantum Leap and/or Timely Persuasion — only she can see or hear. The first act intersperses an argument with Bee’s boyfriend Jay between musings by the two Bees on the future and why it can’t be changed, sprinkling in some fun replaying of the Bee & Jay scenes via a time travel inducing remote control. Older Bee eventually lets it slip that Jay is going to leave Bee because he thinks she’s crazy.

That leads us into the second act, where Jay visits Bee in the hospital. Older Bee is also here. To Jay she’s the doctor, but to young Bee she’s still older Bee and converses as such in a brilliantly clever bit of three-way dialogue. The big reveal here is that Bee may have a brain tumor, which calls into question whether or not the future Bee is real or a hallucination. This becomes the central idea for the rest of the play.

Some random thoughts, observations and ponderings:

(Again — heavy on the spoilers, so stop here if you don’t want anything else given away.)

The time travel bits during act one were a lot of fun and handled very well in a live setting. Loved it every time Jay would walk into the bathroom and re-enter through the bedroom door replaying his previous scene.

At one point Bee reveals a tattoo of a blue jay on her arm for Jay, and future Bee simultaneously reveals the same tattoo to the audience. Since Bee later ends up dating J.J., it would have been cool if future Bee had two blue jays tattooed on her arm. (It’s possible she did and I missed it, but that’s what I would have done.)

Older Bee’s monologue to the audience about the bird virus epidemic comes shortly after J.J.’s theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs and will one day regain their slot at the top of the food chain. Under the hallucination scenario, the timing works out that young Bee is making up the epidemic as older Bee is addressing the audience. This could be further supported by the way she tells the story, especially the “you’ll think I’m making this part up…” in the middle.

Related: At one point when older Bee is giving her monologue she talks with her hands a lot — and in the background young Bee is on the bed having a muted conversation mirroring the hand motions exactly. Brilliantly done.

Under the time travel scenario, you could argue that the presence of older Bee caused the chain of events that plays out in acts two and three in either classic “whatever happened, happened” style or the equally common “your solution was actually the cause…”

The bit with the missing TV remote control that young Bee later mistakes for the time travel remote was a nice touch that feeds both sides of the debate.

Though I always get giddy over time travel, I’m equally a fan of a well done mindf**k so this play delighted me from both angles.

Tying it back to my opening song lyric quote, “Purple Parallelogram” was a song allegedly co-written by Evan Dando of the Lemonheads and Noel Gallagher of Oasis. It was slated to appear on the Lemonheads Car Button Cloth album, but was dropped at the last minute due to a request by Noel Gallagher.

Did it really happen, or did Evan Dando hallucinate the whole thing? Hmmm…

Another long absence from blogging means it’s time to invoke the ghosts of Pearl Jam Xmas singles past for some random thoughts:

Found this Kickstarter campaign for a documentary about the Back to the Future trilogy told through the eyes of the DeLorean Time Machine. Plan is to have it debut in time for the 30th anniversary in 2015. Sign me up! Check it out and pledge here.

Speaking of pledges, Mike Doughty is re-imagining a bunch of Soul Coughing songs in an effort to purge the darkness associated with his old band. Though it did spark some fan controversy across social network land, the PledgeMusic campaign blew away its goal and the early previews of the in-progress songs are intriguingly good. I’m excited for the finished product and tentatively reserving a slot on my album of the year list (right behind those rumored three albums from Benji Hughes…). Check it out and pledge here.

Continuing my loose segues through these bullets, my “at the half” candidates for album of the year would be We The Common by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, Fade by Yo La Tengo, the all request all-covers set Wilco did at Solid Sound, and Charge by David Ford.

Made a good 4000+ words worth of progress on the forthcoming Duty Calls novel on a recent vacation. It’s slowly coming together, but still likely at least a year out. (Let’s say if I finish it before the aforementioned 30th anniversary of BTTF I’ll be happy.) I do plan on dropping another one of the stories as a standalone eBook like I did with “Fester” at some point, so stay tuned…

First the background & origin story. “Fester” is a chapter in a novel about jury duty I’ve been writing on and off (mostly off) for the last few years. Working title is Duty Calls, though sometimes I think Jury’s Out might be better and other times I think both of those titles are lame. So TBD, but for simplicity I’ll keep calling it Duty Calls for now when needed.

That said, “Fester” as a standalone has nothing to do with jury duty whatsoever. Concept was to do an ode to Coachella-esque summer music festivals. A road trippy adventure that turns into a comedy of errors around getting there, getting beer, and getting home.

Why do a standalone? That was never really the initial plan, but one day TP fan Scott Schnaars sent me a Facebook message asking when my next book was coming out. I didn’t have a new novel ready, but that got me thinking as to why I couldn’t start chunking out Duty Calls as one-offs when each story reached a logical conclusion. Could serve to both build demand for the real deal and allow an avenue for reader feedback — much like I promised a couple of critics I’d consider on future works. Felt like a win win all around, and here we are.

On to the proper commentary:

Much like what happened when I was writing the first chapter of TP, I wasn’t sure on where this music festival story should start. And much like what happened with that chapter of TP, my past self came to my rescue. I had written a short story called “Wrong Number?” based on a real life incident involving many calls from a mysterious international number. Felt like a great answer to a “why are you late today?” question so I made some modifications and ran with it as the intro.

Back when we were in high school, the last 4 digits of my friend Jon Mack’s number used to spell “BOYS.” Shawn’s number spelling “COCK” was half based on that, and half on the referenced Jeff Tweedy monologue.

I couldn’t resist the subtle LOST reference with the “We have to go back!” line.

I am a firm believer in the rules around not listening to the band you’re seeing that night beforehand and not wearing the shirt of the band you’re going to see.

The list of bands Bobby introduces Shawn to are mostly earlier projects by artists who later became more famous either in a different band or solo. I also included a few easter eggs of bands my friends have been in. (Which may someday satisfy the same criteria of early bands by people who became more famous later…)

The Handoff is an unfinished screenplay I wrote back in 2001 or so. I’d send it in serialized format to my friend Nate Pepper for feedback, mainly to motivate me to keep the story moving. He’s the only person who will get the deeper meaning of the reference besides me. I re-read it for the first time in ages a couple of months ago and was surprised by how much I still liked it.

The state police really did shut down part of route 95 leading into Lollapalooza one year, which led to a similar parking lot party on the freeway.

The spilled beer on the lap was something that happened to me in college when I was a passenger on a late night drive from Syracuse to Boston in my friend Farley’s car. My spill was coffee rather than beer, which was a bit worse…

In high school I knew some people who often used the Moscow Symphony Orchestra ticket trick to get into shows at clubs in Providence. It was amazing how rarely the ticket taker noticed that the ticket was for the wrong event.

I first encountered “scrips” at Jack Johnson’s Kokua Festival in Hawaii, and to this day I still don’t really understand the purpose.

The wordplay with the bolding and the exclamation points about the loud band is one of my favorite parts.

I don’t remember if it was the same Lollapalooza referenced previously, but I did once accidentally leave Jon Mack at Lollapalooza in Rhode Island, inspiring the ending here. We had many Jo(h)ns in our circle of friends, leaving Jon Mack with the nickname “Jon Jacob Left At Lollapalooza.”

Because “Fester” is a small part of what is intended to be a much longer work, we’re left with quite a few dangling plot threads. Though it’s somewhat subject to change, right now I know (or think I know) that the mysterious phone calls, Doug’N Donuts, The Handoff, Bobby’s bookie & hooker, the girl Shawn meets at the festival, and the impact the events of “Fester” have on Shawn & Bobby’s relationship will all be explored further in the larger Duty Calls novel.